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“A Water Conservation Strategy for British Columbia” was developed by a working group chaired by Prad Khare. The Strategy will contribute to a sustained and healthy resource and provide a common framework for water management activities throughout the province by advancing water as a valuable resource which must be utilized efficiently, wisely and cost-effectively to sustain a high quality of social, environmental and economic well-being, for now and in the future.

In 1992, co-authored papers by Tom Heath and Kim Stephens and by Ted van der Gulik (left) and Kim Stephens were published as an integrated magazine article. “Although there is a perception that BC is water-rich, the reality is that we are often seasonally water-short (mainly because of storage limitations) during the period when water demand is heaviest due to lawn and garden irrigation,” wrote the authors in their opening paragraph.

“We don’t pay the real costs of the water we use—neither the costs necessary to transport and treat it, nor the environmental costs of wasting it. As a result, we’ve come to believe that water is cheap. There’s no incentive to use less of it,” states Bob Sandford. “I think many of our tensions around water are coming to a head. That is important, because we cannot change our actions until we change our minds.”

“The editor of Australia’s most respected economic and business newspaper, the Financial Review, has questioned the wisdom of the arguments for sole reliance on large scale centralised water infrastructure, in particular desalination. This process motivated an article about competition across scales. This has resulted in a range of actions, including collaboration with our key federal regulator and discussions with a range of government leaders”, wrote Peter Coombes.

In the June 2016 issue of Sitelines magazine, nine articles showcase the breadth of program elements delivered by the Partnership for Water Sustainability. “The set of articles introduces readers to concepts such as ‘water as a form-maker’. This means watersheds are defining landscapes,” stated Tim Pringle. “In many ways, the built environment has to adapt to watershed features and water movements to maintain viable settlements.”

“The themes, Whole Systems Approach, reflecting integration through inclusion, Blue Ecology, the interweaving of First Nations and Western Thought and Cathedral Thinking, the foresight and planning for future generations, set the context for the day,” stated Eric Bonham. “The purpose of the workshop was to explore ideas that have universal value and broad application as we travel the road towards genuine long-term water sustainability.”

The Okanagan Region is heavily dependent on irrigation to nourish crops and maintain greenspace throughout a parched region. Ken Salvail’s experience is that people in the Okanagan use more water than is needed. This results from a lack of understanding of how much water is enough. “The irrigation systems that I design and install tend to teach plants how to live with constant water rather than little water,” wrote Ken Salvail.

The influence of the snow melt season occurring about a month early this year is expected to continue through the summer, with the largest departures from normal flows occurring in late-June and through July. “The province has registered 13 per cent of the normal amount of snowpack in the mountains after high temperatures in March, April and early May,” reported David Campbell. “River water flows are sitting at about one-quarter to three-quarters of what they would normally be this time of year.”

“I would say the canary in the coal mine, which probably prompted that is the Cowichan River,” said Julie Pisani, Regional District of Nanaimo. The Cowichan River is at less than 20 per cent of its normal median flow for this time of year. It’s a similar tale for other rivers in the region. “Even though we had better snow accumulation through the winter, the warm weather has melted the snow that did accumulate … so that translates into stream flows being lower than normal as well.”

Total water use is down 18 per cent since 2009, according to research led by Jordi Honey-Rosés, a professor in the School of Community and Regional Planning at the University of B.C. “The jury is still out on whether that decrease is due to policy changes such as water metering or other factors such as urban densification, where we are packing in more people who don’t have any outdoor water use,” he said.

“Basically water metering is a way to charge people for how much water they use and that does help people reduce how much they consume,” says North Vancouver Mayor Darrell Mussatto, who is also the chair of Metro Vancouver’s utilities committee. The committee will have to decide if the environmental benefits would be worth the extra cost. Mussatto says the study is also looking at other alternatives — including hiring additional bylaw officers to enforce water restrictions during dry summer months.

For British Columbians, 2015 was the year of the great drought, dwindling snow packs, melting glaciers, beleaguered salmon runs and a costly forest fire season, followed by windstorms and heavy rains. This provided context for an article written by veteran Vancouver Province reporter Kent Spencer that speculated as to whether there is a connection with “the Blob” and the changing climate in BC.